Mark Woods: Ian a reminder that we should do more — and that some things out of our hands
As the sun came up Friday morning at Jacksonville Beach, the skies were still cloudy, the surf still rough.
But the pier, reopened this summer, was still standing. Surfers began showing up, eyeing the waves. A few people walked the beach with metal detectors. Others walked their dogs. One young man rolled out a mat, faced the dim glow of sunrise, closed his eyes and meditated.
As more people arrived, they held up their phones and took photos and video of the scene. Not necessarily because it looked dramatically different. Yes, there was some erosion to the dunes, some damage in parts of Northeast Florida. But all things considered, this part of Florida was remarkably the same. And that was reason to take a photo and, as many who gathered did, talk about being grateful.
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This wasn’t just another sunrise at the beach.
Jesse Knupp wore a t-shirt with a message on the back that seemed fitting: “all is calm.”
“Did you put that on for today?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “It’s the only long-sleeve shirt I have.”
It still seemed fitting. As is often the case, the day after the storm passed, the air was cooler, drier.
It felt like fall. It felt like relief.
We dodged one of the largest hurricanes ever to hit Florida. Or maybe it dodged us. Either way, the fears that even without a direct hit we were facing another Irma, then maybe another Matthew, never came true. Instead, Ian swept across Central Florida and headed offshore, leaving most of us with some familiar mixed emotions.
Sadness for the people of Southwest Florida. Apprehension for the people of the Carolinas. But — if I’m being honest — mostly relief for us, gratitude that we were spared again.
Recalling New Orleans and Katrina
As we began to see images of the devastation elsewhere, I thought back to 2005 and a few weeks after Hurricane Katrina.
The paper sent me to New Orleans to try to write about that city’s devastation. When I got back to Jacksonville, I met with a local group, talking mostly about local things. But at one point someone asked about New Orleans.
He wondered why people would live in a place below sea level in the first place, and why after storm like that they’d stay there, trying to rebuild their homes and lives.
Embedded in the question was the inference that the rest of the country shouldn’t be spending money to help those who chose to live in New Orleans. It was crazy for anyone to live there. If people hadn’t learned that lesson yet, why should we help them?
I remember thinking that for a Floridian to ask this question takes a remarkable lack of geographical self-awareness.
Much of the country would say the same thing about those of us living here.
About three-quarters of Florida’s more than 20 million residents live near the state’s 1,300 miles of coastline. We’re on a giant, pancake-flat peninsula that’s perpetually in the path of hurricanes.
We’re not just surrounded by water. We’re surrounded by water that’s rising and warming, creating increasingly powerful storms.
In Jacksonville, we also have a huge river running through the middle of town — a river that, partly because of how we’ve dredged it, is prone to having 100-year-floods much more frequently than once a century.
And yet we stay, even after a storm like Ian.
Why?
The simple answer is the same one as for New Orleans — and for people living in places all over this volatile globe.
It’s home.
It seems that everywhere has something.
Northern states, from Maine to Minnesota, have blizzards.
Texas has a smorgasbord of natural disasters. Hurricanes, ice storms, extreme heat, tornadoes, floods, wildfires.
New York had Superstorm Sandy.
California has wildfires, earthquakes and — as I learned when I was there last month — even the rare hurricane.
In all of these places, there are things that human beings can do to prepare for their specific natural disasters. And more broadly, with so many natural disasters exacerbated by climate change, we all should be banding together to do more for the long term.
I don’t want to ignore that. Particularly in Florida, we’ve repeatedly put our heads in the sand and ignored the future.
Just one recent example: This summer Florida’s governor banned the state’s pension funds from making environmental issues, like climate change, a factor in investments.
While saying the priority should be the “highest return on investment,” as is often the case with vision in Florida, what this ends up meaning — whether we’re talking about how we invest pension money or how we build cities — is the highest short-term return. Which isn't necessarily the best long-term investment.
Even if you just take into account insured losses, the costs from climate-related weather events now exceed $100 billion annually.
We absolutely can and should be doing more, particularly in Jacksonville. Not after our luck runs out. Now.
But having said all of that, a storm like Ian inevitably serves as a reminder that no matter what we do, so much remains out of our control.
It’s the kind of storm that leads to the very definition of awe: “a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder.”
Even with planning, some things out of our control
As I wrote about the other day, I recently spent a few weeks backpacking the John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, finishing atop Mount Whitney.
At one point, a friend and I bumped into an old-timer with white hair and a white beard. His name was John. He said that on a previous Sierras hike he had been given the trail name “God of the Mountains” (presumably because he looked a bit like Charlton Heston playing Moses).
John gave us some tips for making it over the high mountain passes. Stay hydrated. Camp at the base of the passes. Get up early and over the top before afternoon storms hit. And, most of all, remember that despite all our preparation and planning, we weren’t in charge.
“The mountain is,” he said.
I thought about that frequently while in the mountains — and when I came back to the flatlands of Florida, how it applies to much more than mountains.
mwoods@jacksonville.com
(904) 359-4212
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Relief after Hurricane Ian passes Jacksonville | Mark Woods
